Sunshine and Neil are at the huge, circular aluminum table already eating breakfast. Crystal has just gotten out of bed and in her candy-colored pajamas slips beside Neil, hoping Sunshine won’t notice that she has woken up late.
“So, what’s for breakfast?” Crystal asks, too elated compared to the majority of the people around her. Both her siblings are silent. Too silent.
After a moment Sunshine, seemingly snapped back to reality, answers, “Oh, Derek!”
“Derek is for breakfast?” Crystal gasps mockingly.
“No, Derek made breakfast.”
“You should've said it clearer,” Crystal says teasingly; she’s hoping for a smile, but instead she gets a grimace. Her sister has taken the statement seriously.
Sunshine shakes her head and leaves the table, not finishing her food.
Crystal is astounded. Her sister, Sunshine, the manner freak of all, has just left the table, without finishing her meal? Joke ‘yon?
Derek serves Crystal a plate of what supposedly is his ‘master dish.' She winces at the sight of vomit-looking... liquid. “What the hell is this?”
“Crocodile eyes, cockroaches, and spider legs, why?” Derek teases. Seeing that Crystal isn’t buying his answer—who would?—he admits, “I put too much water and left it on the stove for too long. It’s burnt oatmeal,” bowing his head in disgrace.
Crystal stands up. “I’m not hungry. I’mma be gettin’ dressed.” Her siblings has sulked her mood, so she left without another word to Derek and Neil.
Derek takes a seat beside Neil. “Why is everybody so down?”
Neil shrugs and drinks his glass of milk.
“I know but you have been down since Thursday. When Dianna left.” Derek raises a brow as an invisible bulb turns on above his head. “Wait a minute: you miss her!”
Neil’s face contorts. He lays the empty glass on the desk with a loud thump.
“It must be tough, huh. Being surrounded by all these things that needs electricity. Almost everything can remind you of her.
"Gosh, Dianna could be bad-ass, huh. It must have been awesome to be able to produce electricity with your plain two hands.”
Neil clenches his jaws.
“Don't worry, dude. You'll get over her in time.”
All the lights in the room suddenly turns off, but the glass windows were ceiling-to-floor so there is no lack of light in the room.
“What happened to the electricity?” Derek asks.
Neil sighs, loud and clear.
“Oh, simple things can remind you of her, huh...”
Neil has balled his fist when the Crystal enters the room in her and he promptly forgets what he was about to do. Sunshine rushes in next, urgently saying, “Heroes, there's trouble.”
The robot-monster blob is gone, but this one looks tougher: a giant robot sucking out electricity from Meralco posts.
“Hey you!” Sunshine cries—the way superheroes speak to the villains as if they would bother to listen. “Stop what you're doing!”
The robot does not pay her any attention. As expected.
“What is he doing?” Crystal asks, watching the robot suck out energy.
“Stupid question.” Derek sneers.
“I mean—I mean,” Crystal stutters, recalling the events of yesterday, “why is it doing what it's doing.”
Neil looks about. It makes him feel faint to be around so much electrical energy. Sunshine is floating beside him, thinking of what to do.
Suddenly, a huge transformer explodes and a whole barangay’s electricity goes out.
Derek aims at the robot. But the robot just sucks out the energy from his discs.
“My discs!” he bowls, seeing the circular forms falling to the ground and realizing they’re not going to rebound as they were initially created to do.
Neil tries to blow the robot away. But the robot only sucks in the energy from the twister he creates. “It sucks in any kind of energy!”
“You’re right!” Derek screams back.
“Well, we’ll see what he can do with my precious icicles!” Crystal simultaneous creates an ice bridge and skates her way around the robot. She forms a huge ice cube to prison the robot. It works—for a moment. The ice melts and the robot punches Crystal out of its way.
“Crystal!” Sunshine shouts, throwing fire balls at the robot. It burns the outer shell of the robot but doesn’t do anything beyond that.
Derek hurries to help Crystal, but she shoos him away as she gets up on her own.
Neil, seeing that his sister is fine, goes back to fighting the robot with Sunshine. He tries to blow it down, while his sister tries to burn it up (if not up, then out). They both stop at intervals.
Each Hero has given a try, but apparently none of them could stop the seemingly inexorable robot. Philippines has just lost its only incorrupt heroes: the Young Heroes.
The robot steps over houses, damaging roofs. It is about to suck a new Meralco post when a shadow passes. A swift shadow that only Derek and Neil noticed.
Derek picks himself up. “What is that?”
“I think it's more a who.” Neil mutters under his breath.
The shadow dashes by again. Neil is right: it seems to belong to a lightly framed young man. This time Crystal and Sunshine has noticed as well. The shadow briefly sprouted once more, then the robot stops moving and starts to fall on its face. The robot is defeated in a few seconds by a mysterious something, or someone.
People run for their lives at the sight of the falling giant robot. A girl screams. She is on the roof, watching the robot a moment ago, about to be smashed by it the next, and she has been rendered immobile by fear. Sunshine fly-dives towards her, takes her by the sleeves of the shirt, and brings her to the ground safely. The girl has picked up her senses and runs off, all the while screaming. The robot continues to fall, one of its fingers hooking into Sunshine’s hair. She tumbles down with the robot and gets knocked out.
“Are you alright?” the young man says in an English accent, not the local Visayan accent she has been accustomed to hear every time she visits the nearest city from the Tower.
Sunshine opens her eyes. A shadow, which belongs to a young man, hovers over her. It stretches a hand towards her.
Sunshine takes the hand and rubs her aching head. “Did she make it?”
“Who?”
“The child.”
“Yes, you’ve saved her.”
The young man helps Sunshine stand up. “You’re alright.” He laughs, silently and rather warily.
Sunshine hears her sister giggle. Her vision starts to clear.
“What's up with the accent?” Derek asks.
Crystal punches him. “Don’t insult it. It’s too cute to be insulted.”
“Pff… I'm the only thing in the world too cute to be insulted.”
“Yeah. Thing.”
“Well…”
Crystal eyes the young man. His frame is average; his height is average. What intrigues her is his outfit: a black jumpsuit, a pair of black gloves paired with a pair of black boots, a black belt, and a black mask that covers his whole face except for his mouth. She deems black a cliché color of choice for a super hero attire. She wears a blue long-sleeved, hooded dress with fur endings, while her brother wears a silver, caped onesie. Disc chose purple for his suit.
Chip has his hair exposed as well and its color is, well, black. He is fair-skinned, though.
When the young man realizes that all eyes are on him, he speaks. “They call me Chip. I mean, I call myself Chip,” he starts, holding his chest to indicate himself. There unmistakably is shyness in his voice.
“Then what is your real name?” Neil asks.
“Um... that's what the mask...” the young man who calls himself Chip trails off.
“Where are you from?” Crystal pushes past Neil and shoves her face near Chip’s.
Chip steps back and answers, “England. Well, I was raised there. I live here now. My mother is a Filipino. We moved in the city only last week.”
"What region?" Disc suspiciously asks.
"City or province?" Crystal adds.
"Umm..." Chip drawls.
"Cut off the interview, guys. Give Chip's mask some respect." Sunshine dusts the debris of her dress as she looks around. Newscasters and Meralco people have just arrived at the scene; as well as fire fighters and policemen. The place is such a mess. A recollection of the horrific events of the previous day starts attacking her, making her feel like throwing up.
Shaking her head, she speaks, “I’m Sun—Summer. Meet my friends—Disc,” arm towards Derek, “Sky,” towards Neil, “and Winter,” towards her sister. Sunshine uses their aliases even though their identities aren’t really a secret. Derek the only exception: he calls himself 'wise enough' to have chosen to wear a mask.
Crystal waves and squeals a “Hi!” upon her introduction. Derek raises a brow at Crystal.
“Would you like to go to our meeting place? Chat with us?” Sunshine is eager to get out of the ugly place. She has already spotted the chief.
“Um… I don’t know,” Chip drawls.
“Oh, please!” Crystal pleads.
“Maybe I could stay till sundown.”
Crystal yelps and jumps.
“Would you take off your mask?” Crystal asks for the sixteenth time. She is sitting across Chip on the sofa set. Sunshine is on the computer, monitoring. Neil is beside her. Derek is playing a video game.
“Um, no?” the young man politely says, though there’s already a tinge of irritation in his voice. His eyes falls from Crystal’s gaze to the feast she has laid before her: cookies, gummy bears, gummy worms, cakes, and milk. He takes a gummy worm and puts it in his mouth. Hesitantly, he chews as Crystal stares at him. Then swallows in pain as if the gummy worm was a rock.
“Is it yummy?” Crystal’s widens.
“Yes,” is Chip’s succinct answer, though he didn’t enjoy it much. He is bored and at once scared and is desperate to think of a way to say goodbye and leave; but Sunshine suddenly speaks about something that catches his attention.
“I still can’t figure out where the robots could be coming from,” Sunshine says.
Neil leans over to look at the printed information about the machinery. “They keep on coming every day since last Monday.”
“Yes.” Sunshine takes the sheets of paper and files them together. “The laptop-disguised robot, the roller skates robot, the sneakers robot, the blob, not to mention the energy-sucking robot. Who could be doing this?”
“Whoever’s doing it is sure making a hell of a Hero comedy out of us. These are clownish designs,” Neil says.
“Well, there’s a weird signal coming from the south,” Chip interferes, standing up. The shyness in his tone diminished.
Crystal trails after him, which freaks him out.
“What do you mean, Chip?” Sunshine asks. She and Neil look at him.
“Well, since I’ve gotten here, I’ve been picking up a signal I’ve never encountered before.” Chip pulls out a black chip out of his pocket, about the size of a pea. “May I?” he asks Sunshine. Sunshine nods and he plugs it into the computer.
Derek pauses his game to look at all the commotion.
The monitor flashes a green grid, then a map of the archipelago. “Just look at that signal.” Chip zooms in the middle of the map, revealing charts of the unstable waves. “It’s emitting very rare waves right there. Bloody ace.” Chip whispers to the screen.
Sunshine flushes. How could someone from another continent be more well-informed about the happenings in her own sector than she?
“What could it be?” she asks Chip.
“It’s where the robots come from,” Chip confidently declares. He faces Sunshine.
“How do you know?” Sunshine is embarrassed, yes; but there is not a tinge of jealousy in her voice.
“My wave detector was off its trolley this morning when the giant robot appeared. It’s the same as that—” he points at the monitor, at the weird signal.
“Why does he know so much about this?” Derek whispers to Crystal. “He’s very suspicious to me.”
Crystal, in her best British accent, says, “You’re just jealous ‘cause you don’t sound like a rock star.” She then sticks out her tongue at her cousin.
“I think I'm calling the head of Young Heroes for some further information about this.” Sunshine pulls out her Phone and tries make a call. “I can't contact Richie. Must still be asleep.”
Derek snickered. “Richie? Asleep?”
“You can ask him later,” Crystal says. “For now we’re being called for an adventure!”
“It’s a signal alright,” Neil comments, sneering at Crystal. “And wherever it’s coming from is sure callin’ us.”
“You really think so, Sky?” Sunshine asks.
Neil nods.
“Then let’s answer the call.” Sunshine crosses her arms. “Disc, Sky! Get the Jet ready. Winter, help me note down the coordinates. And, oh Chip—” Sunshine faces Chip. Despite the tiresome problems hurled in her way right now, there’s always time for generosity. “Chip, since you’re our source of information, would you come with us?”
Chip throws Sunshine a broad grin, and she knows it’s a big, big “Yes!”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,820 Reviews
Hello porcupinestrongwill,
"Curiouser and curiouser". I keep wondering what Chip's power is, shadows? Technology? I don't have a good idea. Going well so far, hope the quality keeps up for the rest of the book! Can't wait to read more. Chip is an interesting addition.
~Kelpies.
thank you very much, Kelpies.
Hi! Cricket here for a review!
I remember you, so I thought I'd check out some of your work, and I'm glad I did!
Oh, and before I go into the meat of my review, I'd just like to make sure you know that I haven't read any of your previous chapters, so if I say something that is off, in terms of plot and stuff, then please just ignore it.
Ohh, candy-colored pajamas... that's a cool description!
The word I put in red, I think can be removed, as to help the flow better.
I'm thinking that this sentence could be rewritten until there are two! When you put this mark (;) it seemed to break up the flow, and didn't seem to go very well with it. So I'd just make it an entirely new sentence.
I think if you said, that he had put too LITTLE water in the pot it would go better with what you're trying to say, and make a much better impression.
The parts that I put in bold need to be changed, as they are redundant. Using one word twice within the same paragraph or sometimes even the entire work, installs redundancy.
I do have one slight problem here... you seem to be switching POV a lot. I mean, in the beginning it was Crystal talking, and now you seem to be switching between Sunshine and Chips. Unless you're doing a scene change, you can't really switch POV right in the middle of a scene. It messes with the perspective of the reader of all the characters, not to mention it won't keep the reader focused one person's thoughts, but instead a wide variety of them all, which means they won't have a main person to be rooting for.
With this, I thought you could use a different example than an M'n'M. It seems rather kidish and I don't think that's what you're going for.
This is a question, so it would need a question mark on the end.
(;) is the wrong type of punctuation for this circumstance. A comma or you could begin a new sentence for this, would work just fine.
This seems like a misuse of the m-dash (—). I'd suggest using ellipses for it instead (...)
Now I'm not entirely sure about this, as you might have been trying to go for repetition, but just in case, I thought I'd mention it. The spots I put in bold, seems to install redundancy.
With this one, I just had a slight concern when it came to paragraphing. Normally I wouldn't say anything, as it does seem to be working out fairly well, but something to this made me a little nervous, so I figured, better safe than sorry!
So my nitpick would that your paragraphs are too short. Paragraphs on average, are around three to five sentences. (Of course, there are exceptions to it, when the idea is a short one, or when you're trying to get your point across) Try and imagine a paragraph as one idea and one thought, and then see how long or short your paragraphs will be.
OK, I think that's it from me! You have an amazing story line (from what I've seen that is) and I hope you continue with it!
Keep Writing!
~Cricket
hullo, Cricket. i thought i'd loosen up a bit with this piece and try going for an omniscient POV. thank you for the nitpicks. helped a bunch.
ahh, OK. That makes sense then!
Hello there, I hope your day has been well!
So, I'm just going to start off by saying that no, I haven't read any of the previous parts of this, and maybe that's my mistake. This did seem a little odd to me, but not in a bad way. I'm intrigued, and I think I may go read the rest of it.
I do think that it could use more detail. The beginning of it seems rather bland, but not because of your wording. It just seems like it lacks detail, and I would be interested in seeing what you could do in that department. Let me explain:
There are three sentences in the first paragraph. That's not bad, and in fact, the third sentence is great. The first two seem a little boring though. You don't have to change it, but this is what I would have written: Sunshine and Neil are already eating breakfast, sitting silently at the table opposite each other. Crystal has just gotten out of bed and slides into the seat beside Neil in her candy-colored pajamas, hoping Sunshine won't notice that she has woken up late. Neil and Sunshine are quiet , both too tired for conversation at such early hours.
Again, that's just my example of detail. I think if you did change the entire work to fit that criteria, you would have a lengthier piece of literature, which I would definitely be interested in reading.
This is very good though! Don't let me ruin what an amazing writer you are. Keep up the good work, porcupine, and write on!
-ForsakenAngel
hullo, dear. thank you very much for this. it's a shame i hadn't seen this on the notifications, so i just read this tonight. but i get your point. thank you once again for the wonderful review. good day.